


(Re)construction

by Splintered_Star



Category: Bravely Default (Video Game) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:42:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/pseuds/Splintered_Star
Summary: Lester rebuilds his old home and works on rebuilding himself, a little.
Kudos: 5





	(Re)construction

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I'm just putting a bunch of un edited drafts from 2015 up today.

By the time Lester returned to his ancestral home, the ruins had mostly rotted and eroded. What little remained - the foundations, a few walls, half of an archway here and there- had been been avoided by fearful humanity, and instead claimed by fiends. 

Hellhounds, drawn perhaps by the ancient blood soaked into the ground, hunted the woods that were once his courtyard and raised their pups in the caves formed by fallen stones. Succubi slept in the once-hallowed wreckage of his family's chapel, stretching their wings each morning out over rocks that were once tombstones. Bats lingered in the trees, swooping over him with fangs barred, as if he were the outsider here. 

A part of him resented it, fire searing the inside of his veins at the thought of his family's home forgotten and abandoned and used by /animals/. His first thought was to kill them all - but chased by that thought, was exhaustion and the taste of ash on his tongue. These were not Crystalists - these animals had done nothing but try and find a safe place to live. They had not wronged him, except by accident, and he found himself weary of killing. 

The hounds snarled at him when he got close, and the succubi tried to charm him and then watched from a wary distance when their charms failed. He went about rebuilding as gently as he could, never harming any of them and disturbing them as little as possible, rebuilding dens and roosts when he had to destroy them. It was reassuring, almost, to know that he could still do something other than destroy, that he was not inimical to all life. After a generation or two they grew used to his presence. He was not prey - no animal had thought him such, since the fire - but neither was he predator or threat, and so he was largely tolerated. Ignored, but for a few curious pups tugged back by their parents. 

On a passing fancy in one especially cold winter, he killed a magnificent stag and left it near one of the hellhound dens - he strung up birds where the bats could find them, left fresh meat near the tombstones. He had found that he enjoyed having the animals around, creatures present that did not hate or fear him. It was a companionship he had not realized he missed until he found it again, and so he went about paying them back. 

Eventually, after a few winters of this, the hellhounds realized that he was the reason for the occasional free meal and the succubi were trusting enough to take the meat offered. A hound, the oldest living in the pack, who'd grown up with his presence and had, as a pup, been gently relocated to a roomier den when Lester had rebuilt the section the pack had been using, approached him while he was working. The hound circled him for long hours, watching, and then came closer. Lester allowed it, trying not to startle when he had spent centuries cultivating fear. The hound sniffed at his offered hand, once, and then again, before tilting its ears at him and returning to its pack. 

The next time the pack went hunting, the hound tore off a chunk of meat from the stag and dropped it at Lester's feet. Lester blinked, touched more than he wanted to admit and readjusting his estimation of the species' intelligence, reached forward and, very gently, rubbed the hound's ears before taking the offered meat. He didn't need to eat, but he decided it was polite. 

The matriarch of the succubi settled down in front of him soon after, her scarred wings stiff. He'd figured out a bit of their language, mostly through observation - enough to follow what the succubi asked of him. Yes, he was going to stay. No, he intended no harm. Yes, he gave them meat and made sure there were places for them to roost in his building. No, he didn't want anything in return. The matriarch asked that question several times, each time more frustrated and confused than the last. Company, he eventually said - presence, he amended, when he realized how the first would be interpreted by a succubi. The Matriarch stared at him and then - in a startlingly human expression - shrugged, and disappeared into a cloud of smoke. 

The succubi lingered closer after that, touching his hair and then dashing away in giggles, or tugging things away from him as he worked - playing with him, he eventually realized. A seed of frustration lingered, but while hunting the Orthodoxy had taught him patience rebuilding his home had taught him something almost like serenity, a calm overlay to the fire inside of him. The Matriarch watched him for long hours and, when he kept leaving them food when the younger ones pestered him, hissed something to the youngest and then turned to Lester - Whatever you're doing, she said, we can help. 

Lester was touched, once again - struck by the idea that he would have assistance, by the idea that he won allies not through fear or necessity but through charity and kindness. It felt like a lesson learned too late, but if the angel spoke truly, he had plenty of time yet to work. 


End file.
